Not too sure if anyone outside the hobby would even attempt buying a gift for a dedicated reefer,... I'm not even too sure of anything else in the near future that I'm looking at equipment wise ,.. Always a safe bet would be beer :-/ somehow that seems to go well with pwc's , cleaning up the glass and building projects ,.... I truly hope everyone has a great xmas and Santa comes thru for you In a big way ,.. enjoy the family , friends and the holidays !!!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you and your Family Dary. I hope you get something nice. Gift cards are the best if your not sure what to get someone. My Husband said he would give me $100.00 but not sure what I'm going to get with it yet.

A question for Greg or anyone who runs a ats ,... Usually during the summer months my aquarium uses somewhere in the neighborhood of 5-8 gals of top off water in a week,... Since the winter has started and the nite time temps in San Diego have dropped to the high20's to low 40's combined with the daytime highs in the mid 60's ,I have done two things , reconnected my heater to give my tank a constant temp of 78 degrees and the addition of my new turf scrubber.
Since then my top off water has risen to 10-15 gals a week ,... The salinity has stayed at 1.026 so it's all in evaporation I would imagine.
Does the ats really cause such a high rate of evaporation or is there something I'm missing here ?

I know here in Upstate NY I notice evaporation increase in the winter due to the lack of humidity. I also have a higher rate of evaporation in the heart of the summer since my central air is running thus lowering the humidity. Those in between seasons when I don't need much heat or AC I notice it drops. Having no frame of reference for the West Coast (furthest west I've been is Denver) I'm not sure if this helps.

It does increase evaporation and gas exchange as the surface area in the ATS is pretty significant. But that evaporation also cools the water so the lights don't seem to heat the system up much at all.

I always found evaporation rates to be higher in the winter for my tank. I think it's driven by vapor pressure, water temp, and relative humidity. If you never noticed this in previous winters I am guessing it could be the ATS.

This is my first winter with my ATS. I have seen no increase in evaporation. I'm always about 1.5 gallons evaporating off of the 55 system a day during the winter due to the dry heat. When the heater isn't running, it is sometimes under a gallon.